Walk In The Wild Officials Concede Future Looks Grim But Zoo Given More Time To Relocate If It Can Find Another Site

After 23 years of hard luck, the people who run Walk in the Wild conceded Wednesday they’ll have to move the zoo or shut it down.

The second option appears more likely than the first.

The zoo’s manager said she hopes a wealthy supporter, whom she won’t name, may be willing to purchase land for a new site. But the Inland Northwest Zoological Society still would need hundreds of thousands of dollars for exhibits, buildings and other necessities.

It took supporters years to raise enough for flush toilets and a perimeter fence at the 81 acres the zoo has used for free since 1972. While the zoo has paid off many debts this year, it still owes creditors nearly $70,000.

There’s little hope a new site could match the one the society is losing. The forested property along the Spokane River has natural rock outcroppings other zoos try to create with concrete.

“I suppose another site is possible, but you’re talking about second-rate zoos and not a first-rate zoo,” said Bob Burke, vice president of the Inland Northwest Zoological Society and a zoo board member since 1981. “I’m very angry.”

Wednesday’s concession came in a press release from zoo manager Frances Drake, who said Tuesday she was hopeful the zoo wouldn’t have to move.

Drake met Wednesday with Wayne Andresen, general manager of Inland Empire Paper Co., the zoo’s landlord, who reiterated that the zoo’s lease will not be renewed.

Andresen said the zoo can remain on the property another year if its board finds a new site soon and needs time to prepare exhibits.

“If they have all the documents in place, and signed and sealed, we would give them the time,” he said.

Otherwise, Andresen said, the zoo must close Sept. 1 and be off the property Jan. 1. The lease was to expire June 30.

Drake said the extra months of business “will be a big help… We’ll be able to get the summer revenue.”

Drake said a supporter offered to buy Inland’s property for the zoo for $700,000, its value according to an appraisal that is at least two years old.

Andresen said he never received such an offer, but probably would have rejected it. The company wants to turn the land over to a government agency that will guarantee its use for public recreation, he said.

The zoological society is a private, nonprofit corporation that could sell the land.

Drake said she isn’t sure whether the supporter would help the zoo buy land elsewhere.

The zoo’s last hope to stay put died when Spokane County commissioners let pass a March 10 deadline for accepting the land as a gift from Inland. The county would have become the zoo’s landlord or could have evicted it and used the land for a park.

Walk in the Wild opened in 1972 with high hopes, donated equipment and animals on loan from local collectors. But the zoo never had the money to match its potential.

Spokane voters rejected a 1978 zoo levy and 1979 bond issue.

Zoo officials often have lamented the zoo’s lack of support from the community.

Burke contends the media gave too much publicity to the zoo’s problems, including times when animals escaped or died violent deaths. Parade Magazine named the zoo one of the nation’s 10 worst in 1989.

“We’ve had a pretty good thing going for (more than) 20 years in spite of all the adverse publicity, and we’re in a position now to build a very good zoo,” he said. “Now, we’re denied that opportunity.”